


New Beginnings

by Kate_Lear



Series: Winter's Delights [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Lear/pseuds/Kate_Lear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Octavia's first day as official house owner, and her first guest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [innie_darling (innie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/gifts).



> A *cough* rather late birthday fic for innie_darling. Thanks go to warriorbot for beta-reading!

The house had a bit of a driveway leading up to it; not long enough for it to qualify as one of those ridiculous sweeping affairs whose sole purpose was to show off the grounds of the estate, but just enough for it to be set back from the country road that was its connection to the world, and Octavia pulled up in front of the house and parked the car with a sigh. There wasn’t the slightest sound of civilisation – only birds twittering jealously over their territories and the wind in the trees – and she could almost believe she was at the end of the world.

The family had thought she was mad, sinking most of her savings into this old place, although most of them had been too polite to say so. Apart from Jasper, who had told her his opinion with an older brother’s blunt forthrightness and his forehead crumpled in concern.

She walked over to the front door, looking through the bundle of keys the agent had given her. None of them understood. She was in desperate need of a new project, something to throw herself into and let it absorb her, in a bid to occupy her mind. She’d once thought that her home would be with Michael, in the old farmhouse just outside of Arles that they’d renovated together, but no sooner had the house been pristine and perfect than the cracks began to appear between them.

It ended, as the poets said, not with a bang but with a whimper: there was no dramatic moment of realisation, no single act that signalled the end. Just a slowly dawning realisation that things had changed: neither of them was the same person of five years ago, and they could either call it a day while they were still friends or persevere until they hated the sight of each other. A woman might need a man like a fish needed a bicycle but, Irina Dunn notwithstanding, the death of something that she had once thought could endure anything stung bitterly.

Octavia set her bag down in the floor in the entrance hall and looked around. Dim light trickled in through the boards on the windows, highlighting the thick layer of dust over everything. Her feet made no noise on the cheap lino on the floor, and she made a face at it. _That_ would certainly have to go; there were surely beautiful old floorboards or tiles underneath that awful stuff.

She’d fallen in love with the place as soon as she saw it. Tucked away among the greenery it had looked like an old lady, dozing in the late autumn sunshine and dreaming of her glory days, and Octavia had wanted it, suddenly, with an intensity that she hadn’t felt for anything in months. Now she ran a hand over the newel post at the foot of the main staircase. _This_ had been left untouched, fortunately, and in the wake of her hand a streak of dark, glossy wood showed.

There was a distant, muffled chirp and she hurried back to her bag to rummage around for her phone. It was easily found – at least there was that to be said for the chunkiness of the handset, unlike the smaller, newer models that she’d been looking at thoughtfully.

‘Hello?’

There was a pause, and then: ‘Hello, it’s me. Evander.’

‘Ev! Hello, how are you?’

‘Fine, I’m fine.’ He hesitated. ‘Is now a good time to talk?’

‘Of course, darling. But let me call you back. Are you still using the same payphone in your halls?’

‘Yes. But you don’t have to… I’ve got change, I can–’

‘No, I insist,’ she said firmly. ‘Calling a mobile from a payphone will just _eat_ your money; now hang up and stay by the phone.’

She disconnected the call before he could protest, and immediately started to re-dial. Evander’s parents gave their children only a token allowance at university in an effort to teach them the value of money, and while Octavia agreed with them in principle that didn’t mean that, as their aunt, she couldn’t reserve the right to help them stretch their funds a little further.

‘It’s Octavia,’ she said, when the phone at the other end was picked up, and Evander’s voice said ‘Hullo, ‘Tavia.’

He still hadn’t lost the slight trace of adolescent self-consciousness that came from dropping his child’s prefix of ‘Auntie’, and she smiled as she answered, ‘So tell me: how are you? Still enjoying your studies?’

‘Yes, they’re good. Hard, but good.’ He was studying French and Italian, she knew, with a view to possible working or living abroad in the future. ‘Italian’s more difficult. I didn’t do it at school, so the first year is an intensive catch-up course. The first term was okay, but this term the level’s increased and it’s fairly intense. Good, though.’

‘Learning a foreign language is a challenge, it’s true.’ Octavia wandered through to the kitchen, looking through her clutch of keys for the back door key. ‘I found when I lived in France that it was surprisingly tiring to have to live in a different language: speaking and thinking and listening. I didn’t feel properly like a native until I started dreaming in it, though.’

She swung open the back door and looked out at the overgrown wilderness that came almost up to the door. Perhaps she’d plant a French kitchen garden.

‘How about the social side of things? Are you enjoying yourself?’

‘Oh yes.’ She could hear him smiling. ‘The French society had a cheese and wine evening at the weekend; it was tremendous fun.’

She grinned, and teased him: ‘And did you all spit it out after tasting, like you’re supposed to?’

‘Well, no.’ He laughed a little. ‘We more just… drank it, really.’

‘Wouldn’t want it to go to waste,’ she agreed, mock-serious, and he laughed again.

‘How’s Sam?’ she asked.

Since going away to university Evander had had several girlfriends, all of whom he’d seemed only lukewarm about, but his latest had seemed to evoke more enthusiasm from him.

‘Oh. Er.’ His tone was suddenly serious and she frowned slightly. ‘We broke up, actually.’

‘Oh dear.’ She pulled a sympathetic face, despite the fact he couldn’t see, as she shut the back door. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Oh no, it’s fine really. It was all very amicable, we’re still friends.’

But he didn’t sound quite so composed about it as his words would indicate and so she made a sympathetic noise and waited, sensing that more might be forthcoming. She wasn’t wrong.

‘Look, I…’ His voice was breathless, almost rushed. As though he had to get out whatever it was he wanted to say before he lost his nerve. ‘I know that this is terribly short notice, but I thought perhaps I could… can I come down for the weekend? There was something I was sort of… hoping to talk over with you.’

‘Of course you can, darling,’ she said at once, turning on one of the kitchen taps and waiting with bated breath until it coughed and produced a thin stream of water. That was one less thing to worry about, then.

‘It would be lovely to see you,’ she continued, walking back through to the hall. ‘But bring a sleeping bag, if you have one. And some warm jumpers.’

‘A sleeping bag…? Oh goodness,’ he said, realisation dawning audibly. ‘Was it _this_ week you were moving into the new house? I thought it was next.’

‘No, this week. Today’s my first day here as its official owner, actually.’

‘Oh, right. Look, you must have a hundred and one things to go, I can come another time, it’s not important really–’

‘No, come this weekend.’ Her attention sharpened, and she spoke more firmly. ‘Really, truly, I’m not just being polite. You can be my first official guest; I’ve got a Primus stove in the car and some tinned food, and I’ll be camping out in the kitchen until I’ve got the bedrooms properly cleaned and made habitable.’

‘It sounds very Swallows and Amazons.’

‘It will be,’ she agreed, leaning against the front doorframe and looking out at the view. ‘So come. Bring clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty, the old place is very grubby. You’re not allergic to dust, are you?’

‘No. I… look, thank you for this. I really appreciate it.’ He sounded pathetically grateful, over such a small thing, and she frowned again.

‘Not at all.’ She glanced back over her shoulder, at the bright spring sunlight illuminating the worst of the dust. ‘Don’t thank me yet; I might set you to cleaning once you get here.’

He laughed briefly and her frown relaxed.

‘Ev…’ she hesitated, not wanting to pry but feeling that perhaps there was more to this than might appear. ‘Is everything alright?’

‘Oh yes, fine.’ But his reply lacked conviction. ‘I just… thought it would be nice to see you.’

Octavia chewed her lip but didn’t press him, and a moment later he said ‘Look, there’s someone else waiting for the phone, I’d better go. I’ll see you on Friday evening, then? I remember which station it is from the letter you sent me.’

‘Call me when you arrive and I’ll come to pick you up.’

They exchanged goodbyes and hung up, and Octavia stayed where she was for a long moment, looking pensively at the little fleecy clouds scudding across the sky before the wind.

He had sounded preoccupied, almost nervous, and she wondered if perhaps she might be able to guess what he wanted to talk over with her. For the past few years he’d been different, almost subdued, as though he were struggling with something. It couldn’t be his studies – he achieved all his predicted grades in his A-levels – and his group of friends sounded nice enough. Teenagers _were_ , after all, renowned for being sulky and uncommunicative, but even so…

It was such a change from the happy, bright-faced child he’d been that it saddened her to see it but she couldn’t force a confidence. All she could do was stand by and provide a listening ear when one was wanted.

Perhaps it was to do with his recent break-up. He’d been perfectly polite about his previous girlfriends but none of them seemed to inspire any particular attachment in him; perhaps Sam had been more his type than any of the others. 

She shook herself out of her reflections and smiled down at the daffodils nodding by the front door. One had fallen over onto the weedy gravel, its stem buckled by an over-enthusiastic breeze, and she picked it up to take it through to the kitchen and put it in a tumbler of water.

Last winter had been taken up with the process of buying the house but before she knew it then the next one would be here and there was so much to do to make the place snug and habitable. There was nothing like spending a winter in a dwelling to find out all its flaws.

She needed this place just as much as it needed her. It had been glorious once: it was easy to see, from the lines of the architecture and the elegant interior spaces, that someone had built it with love. It already felt like her refuge and perhaps, with enough time and care, she might not be the only one to find solace here.

\--End--


End file.
